Were the Unions too powerful before Thatcher?

I'm actually happy to say that because one of the communist leaning union leaders was caught taking money from a communist enemy government

Communist "enemy" government? Where they our enemies under English law? How? Were we at war with them?

You know the Cold War was a moniker, we didn't declare actual war. They were a foreign power.

Ladies and gentlemen, you have just seen a classic definition of 'clutching at straws'.

Ha! Rowing the boat back now, I see. Can you please point to where you're publishing your public statement?

How prematurely you exalted in your fancied victory See the post above

The fact is that the Militant Tendency was a small minority that was booted out of the Unions

Where should I publish it? Where can I publish it that will accept submissions of this nature, and ensure it is widely read by members of the public?

Who are you to say I should do such a thing? I am happy to state that to anyone when asked, this is quite different from standing on the street and shouting it out to anyone who will listen.

Scargill was not booted out until long after the power of the NUM was crushed, after it had become an utterly irrelevant organisation.

"After the miners' strike, he was elected to lifetime presidency of the NUM by an overwhelming national majority, in a controversial election where some of the other candidates claimed that they were given very little time to prepare. He stepped down from leadership of the NUM at the end of July 2002, to become the honorary president."

In April 2010 he was booted out. So trying to claim this as a victory that proves your point:

I would have thought speaking to a non-existent audience might be better categorised thus (and, perhaps, as a sign of advancing madness).

You might think whether it's an enemy power or merely a foreign power is a distinction without a difference, but then you're just demonstrating that you're not particularly aware of the difference in law, which is profound.

It's like the difference between an offence that may involve a few years jail, and treason. See how far you'll get going around accusing people of treason, and how stinging the libel judgements will be.

You may as well accuse someone of being a kiddy fiddler without proof.

All that needs to be done is demonstrate that the west treated the Soviet Union as an enemy government, and the reverse happened with the Soviet Union treating the western powers as an enemy. They don't actually have to be at war.

Do you coincidentally have nuclear tipped ICBMs always targeted on cities of a country who is not the enemy? I don't think so.

If he had been caught at the time, rather than when the UK got hold of the Soviet documents, he would have gotten more than a few years jail time.

Straw man, since the proof exists that Scargill was in contact with the Soviets...

Communist "enemy" government? Where they our enemies under English law? How? Were we at war with them?

You know the Cold War was a moniker, we didn't declare actual war. They were a foreign power.

The Trade union movement was closely aligned with the Communist party in many respects

and there's a high level of certainty that many elements of it were being played by Moscow.

"Enemy" is a legal term of art. Like "trading with the enemy".

They certainly did. That doesn't speak to whether they were in fact our enemies in a legal sense.

What offence? What statute?

Indeed there is. But this wasn't your case, so please don't try to squirm away. You said that it's likely that he's not the only one.

Which is analagous to libelling the entire teaching staff of a school when one is exposed as a paedophile, and asserting you think it's likely there are more... not even without proof, but even without evidence! Based solely on your personal prejudice.

By trade union movement, you mean Arthur Scargill.

Not just him.

By many elements, you mean Arthur Scargill.

Not just him.

You're rather showing your personal prejudice, considering that far more Conservatives and members of the British establishment were shown to be Soviet spies and sympathisers.

Agreed, but those indivuduals couldn't manipulate the voew point sof tens of thousands of other people., Just like Arthur Scargill and other Trade Union Leaders at the time.

'Enemy' is not a legal term whatsoever.

So what's your point? That they must actually be in a state of war with you before you can consider them your enemy?

If they found him secretly going to the Russians for money to continue his own personal war against the government, I'm sure they could have found something to throw at him. He certainly did all he could to conceal it. Why would he have done this if he believed that everything he was doing was all perfectly legal and above board?

Besides being an incredible straw man, because we are talking about union leaders

with communist tendencies being in touch with a communist enemy government

a better analogy would be to say that because one teacher with paedophilic tendencies has been exposed commiting sexual offences against children in the UK, it is very possible that other teachers with paedophilic tendencies will be exposed as doing the same in the future

See above in Bold

Not just him? Who else?

I've heard a lot of people, even some left-wingers, say that the Unions were too powerful in Britain before Thatcher, and that although she went too far, they did need to be put in their place.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1225637/How-Kremlin-hijacked-Labour-Diary-Kremlin-insider-reveals-hold-Soviets-Labour-politicians.html

I guess we'll have to wait another 10 years until thoise docukments get declassified.

That must be why we don't have a Trading With The Enemy Act. Oh, we do!

In fact, Section 2 of the 1939 Act provides a definition of enemy.

Yes, that is the definition of enemy in English law.

For reasons of embarassment? To avoid bad publicity? Considering your knowledge of the law appears to be limited to, "Surely there must be a law against X", perhaps you're better leaving it to those who have actually studied the law to make these judgements.

There you go again. Not one thin sliver of evidence that any union leader other than Scargill was in receipt of funds from the Soviet Union.

See above. Your claim that there is no legal definition of enemy is quite wrong and ignorant, so I'm not sure how much value any of the rest of what you say has.

Not really. From a libel perspective, one is looking at the size of the "class" of claimant who is alleging they've been libelled. All teachers is hundreds of thousands, whereas the size of the class of defamed individuals, "union leaders in the 1980s", is actually quite small.

Not only does logic and the law (Browne v D.C. Thomson & Co) say that these situations are different, but common sense also does.

It's very curious that having discovered one instance of a union leader taking money from the Communists, you desperately jump on that rather than the innumerable instances of members of the British establishment who were secret communists and in the pay of and under direction from the Soviet Union.

Defaming without evidence, and desperately deflecting attention from the social class that was exposed in the cold war as a nest of traitors. One wonders about your own allegiences

One person's diary, with no supporting evidence. Pretty weak.

Conceding Jack Jones. You have two. That's less than the Cambridge 5. More trots and commos were exposed in the Armed Forces and Establishment than the Labour movement.

Who cares? You don't need to be at war with someone before you consider them the enemy.

Yet again, who cares?

Why would he be embarrassed if he thought that going to the Soviets for money was absolutely the right thing to do?

LOL. I let you walk right into that one didn't I? Perhaps you have heard of Jack Jones, leader of the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU)? Oh, I see you have!

I never said there was no legal definition of enemy.

I said that 'enemy' is not a legal term whatsoever.

This is separate to your obsession with 'Trading With The Enemy' a statute law which must necessarily have what constitutes an enemy defined in law as the basis for constructing legal arguments against those thus accused.

Notwithstanding the fact that someone may not be considered an enemy under the definition thus contained within, it is still possible to consider them and call them an enemy nonetheless.

Otherwise you would have to argue that Thatcher and Scargill weren't enemies, and that would have us all dying of laughter.